


Tragic Backstory

by coraxes



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 05:19:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8955424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coraxes/pseuds/coraxes
Summary: "After everything we’ve been through together, there’s nothing you could tell me that would make me think less of you."Orzammar's rough on Brosca.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place between cleaning out the carta and going to look for Branka in the Deep Roads.
> 
> There's no point to this, I just really love Brosca.

The guest room at the palace was bigger than Brosca’s home in Dust Town.  Cleaner, too, she thought as she tracked blood and filth from the door to the bed.  Beraht’s plan had actually worked; Rica had fucked her way to the top.

Brosca plopped down on the plush bed.  The mattress was too soft--real feathers, Rica had told her, from the surface.  “Only the best for my family,” she’d said, with her ever-present smile.  Used to be Brosca had never seen her smile, but these days she looked--good.  _Glowing,_ Wynne had said.  She smiled, her clothes were clean, she was healthy and soft and _a mother._

Brosca fumbled with the buckles that attached her gauntlets to her chainmail.  Rica was fine.  Her paramour was a lying murdering snotbag, but she was better off than when Brosca had left for the wardens.  She’d hoped Leske would take care of her, but--

_Don’t think about Leske._

She unbuckled one gauntlet, threw it on the floor, reached for the other.  Blood stained the fingers.  She’d killed so many people today, countless carta members as desperate as she once was.  Felt Jarvia’s hot blood run down Brosca’s dagger, onto her hand, drip down onto the stone. 

She hadn’t killed Leske.  Still didn’t know who had.  She’d just turned around and the fighting was over, her oldest friend was still on the ground.  But she could see his face, his perpetual smirk ghoulish, her dagger in his throat--

Brosca ripped off her gauntlet and threw it as hard as she could.

It bounced off the door frame, right next to Alistair’s startled face.  “You know,” he said, “if you don’t want me to come in, you could just say so.”  His hair was damp, and instead of his armor he was wearing a clean patched shirt, trousers, and boots. 

Brosca forced a smile, shrugged.  “Do you need something?” she asked.  She wasn’t in the mood for sex, but maybe it was more urgent.

Alistair stepped over her gauntlet and shut the door.  “I was hoping we could talk, actually.”

It was the last thing she felt like doing.  “About what?”

He crossed the room and sat beside her on the bed.  It was, Brosca noticed uncomfortably, the first time they’d been _really_ alone since they’d met, stone surrounding them rather than thin canvas.  “Well, for one thing,” he said, “until today I thought Brosca was your given name.”

Brosca blinked.  “Seriously?  Ancestors, I never even thought about it.”  She’d introduced herself as _Brosca_ to everyone because that was what they called her in Dust Town.  “No one but Rica’s ever called me Vanja.”

“Not even your mother?”

She snorted.  “Mother usually goes with ‘hey, you’.  Or ‘the other one’.”

“Oh.”  Alistair scratched the back of his head.  “Sorry.  Forget I asked, then.”

Brosca shrugged.  “I’m used to it.”  The conversation was becoming uncomfortably close to something personal.  She leaned down and fiddled with the buckles of her boots.  “Was that all?”

“Not really.  I…listen.  I know I’m the last person to lecture about keeping secrets, but until today I didn’t know any of this about you.  Where you were from, what you used to do, that you had a sister…What that brand means.”

She pulled too hard on a leather strap, and it snapped.  Brosca swore. 

The brand meant her whole life was worth nothing.  That she was worth nothing, and she never would be, and all she was good for was killing or incubating some noble’s brat. 

“I don’t like to talk about it,” she said.  Brosca tugged off her boot and tossed it across the floor.

Alistair’s hand rested on her back, and she froze at the unexpected touch.  “Yeah, I got that.  But…after everything we’ve been through together, there’s nothing you could tell me that would make me think less of you.  You know that, right?”

Brosca’s hands clenched into fists, and she realized, to her horror, that her eyes were prickling.  She leaned over, resting her forehead against Alistair’s side, and clenched her fists in his tunic.  If she didn’t look at him, she wasn’t going to cry.  She took a deep breath.

“Promise?”

“On the tits of my ancestors,” he said solemnly, and Brosca laughed.

 

 


End file.
